"We'll do it," said Renny.
"You mean—we'll try it!" chuckled Monk, playing his part.
A heavily armed escort immediately conveyed Monk and Renny through the swamp to a bayou where a speed boat lay. This rushed them to a paved highway. There they found a powerful touring car waiting.
The point where they reached the car was beyond the blasted levee. Monk and Renny were given no inkling that Doc Savage was not in New Orleans.
* * *
THE hour was well past midnight when the touring car flung into New Orleans. The engine was throwing off waves of heat. The radiator was boiling. Renny, at the wheel, had latched the hand throttle clear out and let it stay. He had taken many a corner at sixty.
"If I ever ride with you again, I want my head examined!" Monk complained. "Such crazy driving I never saw!"
"We got here, didn't we?"
"Yeah—in spite of you!" Monk jerked a thumb. "There's a boulevard that leads to Big Eric's home. Take it! We'll probably find Doc at Big Eric's joint."
"O.K." Renny yanked the car about, purposefully all but spilling Monk over the side.
"When this is over," Monk promised, still rankling from the wild ride the solemn-faced Renny had given him, "I'm gonna twist one of them big fists off you!"
A few minutes saw them before Big Eric Danielsen's mansion.
The grounds were brilliant with floodlights, as the Gray Spider had said they would be. The massive iron gates at the entrance were locked.
Monk got out of their touring car boldly. He strode to the gates. He gave the lock a mighty yank.
Pin-n-g!
A bullet left a shiny spot on the wrought iron of the gate, not a foot from his head. It had been fired from the mansion.
Monk did not bat an eye. That in itself was proof that he had pretended great terror at the recklessness of Renny's driving merely to have something to quarrel about good-naturedly.
Monk was never satisfied unless picking on somebody, or being picked on in turn. Usually it was the waspish Ham who insulted him and promised at intervals to see Monk skewered on the sword cane. But Ham and Monk had not been thrown together much in this adventure.
"Hey!" Monk's small voice sounded injured. "You wouldn't shoot a guy, would you, Doc?"
From the mansion, Big Eric's bellow rolled. "Who're you? Come a yard closer, and by golly, I'll put windows in your skull!"
Monk was surprised. This must be Big Eric Danielsen. And Big Eric had never met either Monk or Renny.
"Where's Doc Savage?" Monk called eagerly.
"What business is it of yourn?" Big Eric was canny.
Monk explained who he was. Big Eric was not easily convinced, not even when Renny added his solemn-faced assertions.
"Aw—where’s Doc?" Monk demanded. "We gotta see him. And we ain't got all night."
"Doc Savage went into the swamp with Long Tom and Ham to seize the Gray Spider," Big Eric admitted grudgingly.
"What?"
Without waiting for an answer, Monk leaped easily upward. He caught the bars of the gate. In a surprisingly short time he had surmounted the barrier, monkeylike. He threw the gate lock and Renny drove the car inside.
Big Eric was growling and holding one of Doc's compact machine guns at ready. But he did not fire. As Monk and Renny approached, he concluded they were actually Doc's men.
Pretty Edna Danielsen added the only word needed to allay Big Eric's suspicions.
"These men are Monk and Renny," she said. "They answer Mr. Savage's description."
* * *
FOR a moment, Monk and Renny were held quite speechless by Edna Danielsen's superb beauty. Monk, especially. Monk was something of a connoisseur of feminine pulchritude, homely soul though he might be himself. The secretary who presided over his correspondence in the penthouse laboratory Monk maintained near Wall Street in New York was conceded to be the prettiest in town. She couldn't hold the well-known candle to Edna Danielsen, though.
"But the Gray Spider has left the swamp by now!" Renny declared. "He was to wait for us here in New Orleans."
"When did you last see the Gray Spider?" inquired Big Eric.
"It was nearly midnight."
Big Eric's massive face tensed. "That does not sound so good! The appointment at which Doc Savage intended to seize the Gray Spider was set for ten o'clock. Something went wrong."
Worried expressions came over the features of Monk and Renny. They exchanged glances.
"What do you reckon?"
"Hard to tell," Monk growled. "The thing for us to do is set a trap of our own for the Gray Spider."
"Shall we call in the police?" asked Big Eric.
"And spend the rest of the night explaining and wading around in red tape?" Monk snorted. "Nix!"
"Yeah," Renny couldn't resist razzing Monk. "The cops would take one look at you and swear there'd been a break at the zoo."
Monk grinned widely. Strangely enough, any and all nasty cracks about his looks tickled Monk. He was one of those rare individuals—a homely man who was genuinely proud of the fact that his features were something to stop a clock.
"Renny and me will take care of this Gray Spider!" he declared.
"Renny and you and I!" corrected Big Eric. "I’m in on this. We'll drop by the police station and leave Edna in safety."
"You will not!" Edna snapped. "I'm going to drive the car!"
"Glory be!" grinned Monk. "I was afraid I'd have to ride with Barney Oldfield, here, again!" He gave Renny an amiable leer.
Big Eric ran into the house, was gone a minute, and came out stuffing little hand grenades into his pockets as though they were apples. He leaped into the car. The machine whipped around expertly, Edna Danielsen's slenderly capable hand on the wheel.
Big Eric flexed an arm which was muscled like a mule's leg.
"I crave action!" he declared.
* * *
HE got it a lot sooner than he expected. The powerful touring car swerved into the street. Instantly, two other machines approached from opposite directions.
They were big vehicles, but old and dilapidated. They literally bristled with little swamp men. Almost a dozen to each vehicle!
Both old cars banged headlong into the car occupied by Big Eric, Monk, Renny, and Edna. As though splashed by the impact, wiry, vicious swamp men covered the machine.
With a bellow, Renny reared upright. He performed the well-nigh incredible feat of grasping a man by the middle of the body with each hand. Only his gigantic fists made this possible. He banged them down among the other swamp men.
Monk's arms—longer by six inches than his own legs—gathered a bundle of the attackers. He fell out of the car with them, contriving so his two hundred and sixty pounds of gristle and stiff red hair landed atop them. As one man, they screeched in agony.
One of the efficient light machine guns Doc had perfected turned loose in Big Eric's fist. It seemed to melt the man in front of the muzzle. A second swamp man died before the ripping weapon.
Then a car jack swung. Big Eric collapsed. He kicked weakly on the floor boards trying to rise. A hard little fist pounded his temple until he no longer squirmed.
Monk emitted a series of deep bellowings, hisses, and gruntings—the sounds he always made when he fought. Men rushed him in clouds. They flew away from his driving arms like sparrows tackling a windmill.
Suddenly Monk seized a yellowish-brown fiend. With seeming ease, he threw the fellow fully twenty feet. The man's hurtling body knocked down another swamp man who was on the point of knifing Renny in the back.
Three of the attackers were holding Edna Danielsen. She kept them busy dodging her kicks and bites.
Renny abruptly went down, stumbling over a man he had slammed into unconsciousness with his great fists. And half a dozen swamp denizens piled atop him.
The man with the car jack ran up. He clanked his weapon off Renny's head. Renny weaved. He seemed to get sleepy on his feet.
Lunging, Monk reached Renny's side. H
e tore the assailants away. In a moment both giants were on their feet, fighting side by side.
A gun or two cracked. But in the gloom it was as easy to hit friend as foe.
Somewhere in the distance, a police siren started wailing. The shots had been heard. Somebody had put in a riot call.
"We got—'em goin'!" Monk puffed. He tore the car jack out of the hands of the wielder, and with one pull all but ripped the man's arm from his body.
Pretty Edna Danielsen screamed piercingly.
Monk and Renny looked in her direction.
A vicious-faced swamp man was holding a revolver to her head.
"Geeve up, damn yo'!" he screeched at Renny and Monk. "Yo' want me to keel gal?"
The attackers had picked their one chance of stopping Renny and Monk. The two giants hesitated—and were suddenly down and secured. Stout ropes were lashed about their ankles and wrists.
A large bakery delivery truck now ran up. Monk remembered that Doc had mentioned the fact the Gray Spider used such trucks to transport his men in New Orleans. At least, such a truck had been waiting outside the Antelope Hotel, with Lefty at the wheel, when the swamp men had turned the shrapnel burst loose in the room they thought was occupied by Doc's men.
Such a truck would not attract attention at this hour. Bakeries often made early-morning deliveries.
Every one—prisoners and attackers alike—jammed into the truck. The vehicle rumbled away, spurred by the nearing wail of the police siren.
* * *
THE spokesman of the swamp men sneered into Monk's face.
"Yo' ain't so smart!" he grated.
"You're tellin' me?" Monk snarled. He was smarting under the defeat.
"Gray Spider ees send yo' to keednap Beeg Eric as test!" growled the swamp man. "Hees want to see if yo' talk to Beeg Eric as friend. Yo' did. Bien!Dat prove yo' work fo' bronze man!"
Monk blinked slowly a few times. Then, just as slowly, he lifted what was left of his coat tails.
"Kick me!" he invited. "Hard!"
He saw now that he and Renny had been tricked into revealing their true colors. But how had the Gray Spider gotten word into town so quickly? No one could have equaled that terrific drive of Renny's.
"The Gray Spider tipped you by radio to set a trap for us at Big Eric's place—that right?" he asked.
"Oui!
Yo' guess eet!"
Monk gave Renny a downcast look. These swamp men were part of the force the Gray Spider kept in New Orleans to do his bidding, no doubt Monk could understand how it would have been simple for the master villain to set his trap.
"What a pair of busts we turned out to be!" he growled.
The worst fact was—they had caused Big Eric and Edna to fall into the Gray Spider's clutches. And a moment later, the already gloomy outlook was enormously blackened.
For, with great glee, the spokesman of the swamp men told of the capture of Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny. He recited in detail about his fellows glimpsing an alligator in the act of devouring the giant bronze form of Doc Savage. He had evidently received this news by radio from his comrades in the swamp.
The word of Doc Savage's demise had a terrible effect on pretty Edna Danielsen. She had been holding up splendidly under the difficulties, betraying little nervousness. But now she gave a single low, wretched cry, and fainted.
She was still unconscious when her form was lifted from the delivery truck a short distance outside New Orleans. Big Eric was also forced out.
As the truck drove on, Monk caught a glimpse of a plane in a field near where Big Eric and Edna had been unloaded. It was apparent they were to be taken somewhere by air.
"To the Castle of the Moccasin!" Monk guessed.
He fell to wondering about that mysterious rendezvous. The Castle of the Moccasin! They had so far learned nothing of its whereabouts. They did not have even a wisp of information concerning the nature of the place.
The delivery truck, it soon developed, had a high-powered engine. And on the straightaway, Monk would have been willing to bet it was making eighty miles an hour.
The very speed of their going made time drag.
* * *
Chapter XIV. THE BIG SURPRISE
DAWN had not yet arrived when Renny and Monk were hauled into the presence of Long Tom, Ham, and Johnny, who lay bound hand and foot in the shack in the depths of the great swamp.
Long Tom moaned aloud. "Good night! And you fellows were our last hope!"
Monk caught sight of Ham. The faintest of amused gleams came into Monk's little eyes. If it had not been for his grief over learning of Doc Savage's demise, Monk would have burst into roars of laughter.
Any sort of misfortune Ham met with tickled Monk—although the next instant Monk might risk his very life to rescue Ham. These two had been good-natured enemies since the War.
It was Monk who had framed the ham-stealing charge which had been the cause of Ham getting his nickname. Ham had never been able to prove it, a point that still rankled his lawyer soul.
Too, Monk was one man who could hold his own against Ham's sharp tongue. He had an infallible system of getting Ham's goat. He would merely make some reference to Ham's stealing anything connected with a porker, from pig's knuckles to the pig's way of squealing. This burned Ham up.
There was no laughter or razzing now, though.
It was not their own danger that stilled their tongues. It was the overpowering grief brought by the knowledge that they had lost their friend and benefactor—Doc Savage.
The sinister throbbing of the tom-toms still flung its disquieting influence over the huge morass. The cadence was faster. It tore at their nerves. It seemed to destroy the very regularity of their heartbeats. It beat like invisible waves against their brains.
"That infernal racket is driving us nuts!" Johnny muttered.
"And a big alligator keeps crawling up in front of the door," Long Tom groaned. "The guards chased it away a time or two. But lately, they've been letting it hang around, just because it makes us sweat. Seeing the infernal thing reminds us of— of—"
The electrical wizard shuddered violently, and could not finish. Thought of Doc's fate choked him.
Once more, they sat and listened to the thump din of the voodoo ceremony in the hollow at the top of the hill. The caterwauling yells still came. If anything, they were louder, even more fanatic.
"They're working up to the point where the human sacrifice will be offered!" Johnny said in a thick voice. "I studied their infernal rites enough to be able to tell."
"Use your brain on somethin' useful!" Monk groaned. "Gettin' us out of here, for instance!"
Long Tom suddenly gave voice to a horror-stricken gasp. He shut his eyes tightly. The others looked to see what had affected him.
The giant alligator had returned. It crawled slowly through the steaming moonlight for the door. It was like some hideous thing from Hades.
* * *
CHUCKLING loudly, the guards looked inside. The horror the presence of the reptile inflicted upon the prisoners seemed to give them great glee. They clucked at the 'gator, calling "Sic 'em!" and other pleasantries.
One guard departed. A chicken's frightened squawl arose. The man came back with the fowl. Using the live bait, he proceeded to decoy the giant alligator through the door.
The reptile entered like a pet dog.
Playfully, the guard tried to persuade it to take a bite out of Monk's leg. He had no success. Disgusted, he kicked the 'gator in the side.
The big saurian now became quite motionless. It might have been hearing something.
Sure enough—a sound came!
It was by far the most welcome note that ever impinged upon the ears of the five men lying bound and sentenced to death upon the filthy floor.
The sound that meant Doc!
More than ever was the ventriloquist quality evident in the wondrous note. Mellow, trilling, soft, it seemed to waft forth from every part of the ramshackle building. It filtered through the
awful throb of the tom-toms; and, tiny, small thing though it was, it reduced the savage rhythm to something unimportant, no longer dangerous.
Courage flowed into the five men. Utter joy washed their bodies like some hot, exquisite bath. Doc was alive!
They didn't know how it could be. But Doc was here somewhere. Furtively, they tried to locate him. It was fruitless. His trilling sound seemed to emanate from the molecules of the air itself.
The guards were puzzled and not a little awed.
"Sacrй!
Vat ees dat noise?"
The swamp man who had kicked the 'gator stepped back. The next instant the reptile gave an expert flounce. The guard sprawled flat on his back. He lost his machine gun from his hands.
The alligator now did what no commonplace saurian ever did. It got up on its rear legs. The repulsive stomach of the thing was closed with, of all things—
A zipper fastener!
With a s-s-wick!of a noise, the zipper came open.
The mighty bronze form of Doc Savage flashed forth.
* * *
FOR a moment, the superstitious guards must have thought the big reptile had actually turned into the bronze giant they believed one of its kind had devoured. Astonishment held them paralyzed.
Doc hurled his 'gator masquerade at them. It was but the hide of one of the reptiles, cleverly mounted. It was heavy, though. It flew true. One guard went over backward.
Another guard emitted a howl of alarm. His aircraft-type machine gun cut loose. The recoil of the powerful weapon shook the strange harness about his middle, threatening to tear him to pieces. Empty cartridges chased each other over the floor like brassy mice.
In his haste, the man forgot to exert the proper science in holding his weapon down. It got away from him. The stream of slugs cut through the plank walls like a slasher saw.
The fellow saw the bronze giant whip toward him. He sought to retreat. A terrific blow felled him.
A knife glinted in the pale light over the roped forms of the five prisoners. It slashed with the nice precision of a machine. Ropes fell away.
"Yeo-o-ow!" bellowed Monk. He reared to his feet, roaring, snorting.
Outside the shack, a swamp man was creeping along the wall. His wizened figure could be seen through the inch-wide cracks between the up-and-down wall planks.
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